Caraphernelia
by thesilentsisters
Summary: Cara has been raised specifically to be unwound, with no alternate options. She and almost two hundred other teens and children live in The Institution, preparing to be unwound on their fifteenth birthday. She accepts it without question, but when her closest friend Mila kills herself rather than be unwound, she begins to question if this is really what she wants. (Katrianna)
1. Chapter 1

The girl leaps from the tiny platform, no amount of fear in her eyes. She knows she'll die, and this doesn't scare her. The alternative does, however.

"Mila! NO!" A taller girl runs out onto the platform, her fingertips just barely rushing the falling girls hair. She falls to her knees at the edge, and even with the falling rain, she hears the smaller girl hit the paving stones in the courtyard, nearly a hundred feet below.

She doubles over, tears mixing with the rain. The sky darkens, turning a deep purple, nearly black. She can see dark patches spreading across Mila's clothes, and hears footsteps drawing closer to the dead girl. She needs to get there first.

She knows these halls well, after spending most of her life here. But the spiral staircase seems dark and forbidding as she races down it, occasionally hopping over the guardrail to drop to a lower level. She stumbles out into the pouring rain, and kneels by her friends side.

"Mila, please. Wake up." She knows it's impossible of course. Her skulls been cracked, and her neck is at a strange angle, but she still shakes her, looking for a sign of life. When she hears the footsteps on the other side of the door, she knows it's hopeless.

"I'm sorry." She kisses her friends cheek, and fades into the shadows. People converge on the area, loading the dead girl onto a stretcher and sending pages to inform the necessary people. The girl turns her back on the blood smeared pavement, and begins the long climb to the platform.

The note is where she knew it would be, wrapped in a thin layer of plastic and jammed between two stones. She works it free and brings it inside to read, to a window overlooking the tiny courtyard still full of people.

_My dearest Cara,_

_ I'm so sorry it had to end that way. They were coming for me today, you know that. I should have stayed behind, said goodbye the right way. But I can't. You would stop me, ask me to stay with you another hour, and then another. They would find me, and take me. I don't want to live that way, divided between so many people, unable to think, or truly live my life, and unable to die. I think, therefore I am. But what if I'm not? What then? I'm sorry I didn't have the courage to go through with the unwinding, and I'm sorry I cut short the limited time we had left. I'm sorry. I love you._

_ -Mila._

The girl leans against the windowsill, and looks out over the bloodstained courtyard. Raised to be stronger than human, to be smart and brave, and selfless. Raised to be unwound, to be given to the highest bidder. She should condemn her friend for choosing suck a cowardly path, but she can't. She folds the paper carefully, her friends tears still damp on the paper, and wipes away her own. She can't let them see that she feels anything but contempt for this girl, this coward.

In the hall on the way to the dining hall she sees the calendar with all the children's birthdays. Her friends is marked in red. Her own red box is three weeks away.


	2. Chapter 2

The lunch room is silent. They know what happened, but Cara is the only one who knows why. She sits at her table, forcing herself to eat, but not tasting the food. She can't let on how upset she is, how much the empty seat next to her hurts. The head teacher stands at her podium near the front.

"A coward ended her life today." The words are loud, strong, and they bring out a loud cheer from the remaining children. "She refused her chance to improve the world, and save lives. She ended her life, and many others will suffer as a result. We will not give in to this! We will serve our given purpose proudly! We will not give in!"

"We will not give in! We will not give in!" The children take up the chant, their voices filling the hall, and then the corridor as they file out. Cara follows, not speaking to hide the cracks in her voice.

One. Two. Three. Four. She pushes the bar up and down, ignoring the faint burn in her triceps. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. She and Mila had made a game of it, seeing who could do the most in a minute. Cara increases her pace, trying to drive the memory from her mind. It's no good, thinking of her. If they find out she was there, they'll be hell to pay. There's not much they can do, with only a month left, but an 'early birthday' is a constant threat. Three weeks left. Cara can't afford to lose more.

"You hit your limit." A girl says, pointing to the screen by the weight machine. "You shouldn't go so fast." Cara releases the bar, letting the machine pull it back up.

"Thanks. I'll work on that." She forces a smile, and heads to the treadmill. She knows this room better than any other in the Institute; she's spent hours here every day since she was seven. Hours, strengthening her muscles so whoever got her arm would be able to make up for the muscle mass lost after unwinding fairly easily.

Cara looks across the gym at other children working out, running on treadmills, lifting weights, even using the climbing wall. She should have another hour here, but with her unwind date so close they won't risk her being hurt.

She hits four miles on the treadmill and it begins to shut down automatically. Tim's up. Cara leaves through the back door, and stumbles through the narrow passages blindly. It shouldn't be this hard, losing someone. She's lost people before, had to say goodbye when they turned fifteen. This is different. She saw the outcome, the result.

It's never been a question of if or when. Cara will be Unwound. She's never been scared, never really thought much about it. But the idea of it was so terrifying for Mila that she jumped, rather than face it. Can I do this? Cara wonders. She curls up in a tiny alcove, her long brown hair shielding her from the stark light of the corridor. She doesn't hear the footsteps, but when a hand grabs her shoulder roughly she feels a stab of fear shoot through her existence. The headmistress.

**So if you like the story comment on it, please? I'll probably do another few chapters but if no one reads it I'll probably discontinue it.**


	3. Chapter 3

The headmistress pulls Cara out of her alcove roughly, but not hard enough to leave bruises. She can't damage the child, now that she's being sold in less than a month.

"Let go of me!" Cara stumbles back, but she can't escape the headmistresses iron grip on her wrist. She stumbles, and sees the paper fall from her pocket and back into the alcove, hidden in a shadow. The girl watches it fall as she's dragged away, away from her last connection to her friend.

"Why did she jump?" The headmistress shoves the child against the wall of an office. "Why did she? Tell me, now."

Cara feels dizzy, and faintly nauseas, but both of these things are shoved to the edge of her consciousness, which is dominated by fear. She needs to get out of this she needs to go get the letter back. The headmistress leaves her huddled in the corner, as she retrieves the electrical cables from the cabinet.

"Please. No. No!" Cara lifts her arms to protect herself, but the headmistress simply sticks the electrodes to her wrists. The girl knows about this, far too well. No bruising or cuts, but more painful than being beaten.

"Tell me. She told you something, didn't she?" Her hand hovers over the switch, threatening.

"I don't know! Please, she never said anything!" The hand slams down, and Cara entire body is lifted slightly from the force of the shock. It feels like she's been hit by a bus from the inside out.

_As the electricity leaves their bodies, the two girls hold each other, trying to bring air into their lungs. The headmistress aims a kick at the smaller girl, but the other moves her wrist into the foots path, deflecting it away from her friends head. She registers the thin piece of bone sticking from her arm, but she's past feeling any pain that basic. _

_"That'll teach you to associate with citizens." She aims another kick, and the girl blacks out, her blood still dripping onto the floor._

That day in the rain. She wasn't supposed to be there. Neither of them were. But they'd missed the bus…

"Was she given outside information? Tell me!" The headmistress has her hand on the switch again, ready to pull it. Cara lies on the floor, every inch of her trembling with pain and fear. The switch goes down again, and all the remaining air in her lungs is squeezed out in a cry of shock.

_Rain, a chilly wind. The bus disappearing as the two girls raced after it. The coffe shop…warm and inviting. A boy sitting alone, surprised to see two girls soaked to the skin take the seats across from him. He hasn't seen them before, and is shocked when the taller one takes the ear bud from him and puts it in her own ear. A look of shock, and then fascination flits across her face._

_ "What is it?" She asks, the strange sounds shocking her ears, the words hidden in the noise screaming some dark and angry poem. She's never heard anything like it. _

_ "Caraphernelia." _

"no. no." The girl lies limp on the floor, not even shaking.

"Tell me!" The girls eyes fill with fear as she sees the hand on the switch. But she can't get the words out, can't speak quickly enough. The hand slams down again, and she's gone into oblivion.

_The girl smiles, and closes her eyes, the strange sounds enveloping her. The boy doesn't know what to make of this, even with his abnormal situation these girls are by far the strangest people he's met._

_ "Are you from…around here?" He asks. They can't be, he knows that. Their clothes are plain block, and far too thin for the Irish January. But once again, they surprise him._

_ "We live a half-hour west of here. At the institute. I'm Mila, and this is Bethany. We missed our bus going home." Bethany is still absorbed in the sounds, her mouth moving with the lyrics. The boy recognizes the name, Institute. These girls are being raised to be Unwound. Just like him. Thithed._

The girl is tiny, with straight brown hair down to her waist. She seems even tinier unconscious, her hair across her face. The pail of ice water does nothing but make her smaller, until she seems in danger of disappearing.

"Bring her to the infirmary." The headmistress barks. She aims a kick at the girls head, but then thinks better of it, remembering the impending unwind date. "Get her out of my sight."


	4. Chapter 4

_The song ends and the girl jerks out of her trance. She smiles and takes her friends hand. She doesn't realize the boy in the white clothes has just figured out who she and her friend are. Because she finally found it._

_ "Caraphernelia." She tests the name on her lips. It's long, like a poem. The strange noises, full of more feeling than she's ever heard, more beautiful than any of the words that pour from the mouths of her peers. She chooses in that moment, to end her existence as Bethany. Caraphernelia. Her name._

_ The bus pulls up, but as the angry headmistress drags her on board she watches the boy standing in the rain, watching, whispering her name. Caraphernelia. _

Cara jerks awake, her whole body aching. The white tiles above her head spin dizzyingly, and she locks her eyes closed, her head pounding. A needle is shoved roughly into her arm, and she dissolves into darkness.

"Carapherlenia Ward. Number three-seven-two. Patient admitted at nine sixteen Pm." She hears the words through a haze, not sure whether their a product of a mouth, or her own mind.

"Wake her up." Fear freezes her in place, paralyzing her completely. It's the headmistress.

"She's been sedated, Ma'am. A fighter jet couldn't wake her." Caras whole body goes weak with relief as she hears the harsh footsteps fade into the distance. Saved. But all salvation is temporary.

Everything hurts, when she wakes up again. She forces her eyes open, and is instantly blinded by the stark white of the room. She flops the deadweight of her arm across her face, hoping to find relief in the charcoal gray cloth, but she's met with more white.

There's no fear this time, only a heavy, dead weight in her chest, pinning her to the bed. White means she has a week.

_ She opens her eyes to Mila sitting on the edge of her bed, wrapped in a blanket._

_ "I'm sorry." She whispers, letting the blanket fall to the ground, the stark white of her clothes making even the steril walls seem gray. Cara feels her eyes fill with tears, as she realizes what this means. One week. That's when they dress you in white, and send you off to be Unwound._

She opens her eyes again, to a darkened room. There's still a dull ache in her muscles, but she can think now, and knows what she has to do. The note.

'But I can't' That line had meant something. Mila would never admit to being unable to do anything. It could have been fear that made her write it, but Cara knew her better.

The nurse that was supposed to be on duty had taken a bathroom break, and the girl slipped out the door, racing through the dark halls. The gym area was mercifully silent, and she snatched up the note quickly, before climbing the spiral staircase to the old loft they had spent so many hours in.

'But I can't' The words had been written with a darker color pen than the others, bleeding through to the back, impossible to detect in the pounding rain, but bright as day in the moonlight. Cara's heart beat faster, as she recognized the code on the back. They had made it up ages ago. I meant you, or the letter U in some cases. But would probably mean nobody, or a letter N. Can't had to be reality, or R.

Reality you nobody. RUN.

The code had been made up so many years ago the jokes and stories that had been behind each translation had faded, but it was functional. But what did it mean? Mira was telling her to run, of course.

"Oh gods." Cara leans against an old beam and closes her eyes. If she stays, she'll fulfill her duty, and help so many people. It wouldn't be what Mira wanted, but what sort of a life would she have outside of the Institute? Running from the law, scavenging, trying to survive. Pain and fear, so much more than staying would bring. But what about the unwinding? An idea so terrifying Mila would kill herself before she faced it. But it was what she was meant to do.

"I'm sorry, Mila. I'm so sorry." She let the paper fall into her lap, and let the tears fall. Fifteen years, fifteen years spent together, closer than sisters. But everything was gone in an instant. It seemed like yours, she sat there, her feet slowly going numb from the cold and the lack of blood flow. Tears began to darken her white shirt, and the ink on the letter smudged slightly, staining her fingers.

"I'm sorry." She stands up and tucks the paper into her pocket, and begins the long walk back to her dorm.


End file.
